Imphal/Itanagar, July 17 (UNI) The recent collapse of the 31-month-old Shiv Sena-Nationalist Congress Party-Congress alliance Maha Vikas Aghadi government headed by Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray in Maharastra, reminded of political developments in two northeastern states Arunachal Pradesh and Manipur, where the BJP formed the governments through political jugglery. Political pundits observed that the BJP aiming to make the northeast region a “Congress Mukt” (Congress-free) political bastion, is now running governments in four of the eight northeastern states Assam, Tripura, Manipur, and Arunachal Pradesh.
The remaining four and is not allied with the MNF government. The BJP with 12 MLAs is an ally of Nagaland’s United Democratic Alliance (UDA) in which the Nationalist Democratic Progressive Party (NDPP) is the dominant party of the UDA, which is an all-party alliance governing India’s first opposition- less state. Another NDA ally, the Sikkim Krantikari Morcha runs the government in Sikkim. The SKM has 19 MLAs in the 32-member Sikkim legislative assembly and the BJP 12. The BJP, in the February-March elections, had secured a thin majority of 32 MLAs in the 60-member Manipur Assembly and like neighboring Assam, returned to power for a second consecutive term.
The party wrested power in the northeastern state in 2017 despite not securing an absolute majority. In the 2017 assembly polls, the Congress had become the single largest party by bagging 28 of the 60 seats while the BJP had won 21, but the saffron party managed to cobble up the numbers as some Congress MLAs defected and facilitated the BJP to form the government states the BJP led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) partners – the National People’s Party heads the government in Meghalaya and the Mizo National Front (MNF) in Mizoram.
While the BJP with two MLAs is a partner in the NPP-led Megha- laya Democratic Alliance (MDA) government, the saffron party has a solitary legislator in Mizoram
